A Crack in Everything Painting

Sol Luckman’s bold, atmospheric compositions have been featured on the covers of Itzhak Beery’s THE GIFT OF SHAMANISM, SHAMANIC TRANSFORMATIONS and SHAMANIC HEALING published by Inner Traditions. The artist’s most recognizable styles, One Brush Technique with ink and Wavy Gravy with acrylic, are employed in his ongoing exploration of spiritual energy. His vision of the world as fundamentally energetic could be called shamanic in its appreciation of the underlying conscious vibrancy of all things. The effect on the viewer just glimpsing this ineffable world underneath or inside the visible can be startling, even unsettling at times; it can also be highly aesthetically stimulating in an otherworldly way. In his self-illustrated art memoir, MUSINGS FROM A SMALL ISLAND, Luckman writes about the influence of the Russian modernist philosopher Viktor Shklovsky, who proposed that what characterizes genuine art is “estrangement.” “The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known,” wrote Shklovsky. “The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.” Luckman’s intention is for viewers to encounter estrangement in the universe of intelligent energy intimated in his artwork, as objects condition space with their essence, and vice versa, and the outside conflates with the inside because All Is One.